Going after Whitehead.

It seems to me the main issue in the 10th is illegal immigration. While people in the 10th may not like the current state of the war in Iraq, I doubt most support the “get out now” plan being pushed by the Dems in Congress. Thus, Marlow’s recent statement on the war doesn’t reflect the view of the majority in the district:

Unlike my opponent, Jim Whitehead, I believe that the war in Iraq is a critical issue for the people of the 10th District, and my top priority as your congressman will be working to bring our involvement there to an honorable end as quickly as possible.

Buzz, I would agree that illegal immigration might be a more popular issue in the 10th District, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it should be the main focus of any campaign. Sometimes, you need leaders to start discussion and are working to bring people around and force debate on particular issues.

So Marlow’s efforts appear to be doing just that (and he may very well fail in his attempts), in addition to working to exploit what he feels is a weakness in Whitehead’s campaign.

That isn’t to say that Marlow doesn’t have opinions regarding illegal immigration (quite the contrary actually).

An “honorable end” or ANY end would be good, Heart (I’m not a Bush Admin. ass-kisser and haven’t been since the Iraqi invasion)…

…BUT, I’m looking at the mindset of the “good ‘ole country boys and girls” of the 10th District for my analysis of the effectiveness of the ads. And, they won’t be effective in this CD race, except to make sure the Republican voters in the 10th know exactly who the Dem candidates are and not to vote for them.

See, you Dems would have likely been better off NOT identifying yourselves as Dems. People approach multi-person ballots like students well-trained in taking multiple-choice tests: they first eliminate the impossible answers in order to make decisions based on the remaining plausible ones. By this guy advertising himself as a Dem, the effect will be to obtain only hardcore Dem voters voting for him.

See, you Dems would have likely been better off NOT identifying yourselves as Dems. People approach multi-person ballots like students well-trained in taking multiple-choice tests: they first eliminate the impossible answers in order to make decisions based on the remaining plausible ones. By this guy advertising himself as a Dem, the effect will be to obtain only hardcore Dem voters voting for him.

I’m not disputing that, but isn’t it kinda counterproductive? If Democrats wish to become a competitive party again in these types of races, doesn’t it make sense to use the Democrat name? Granted it’s going to be an incredibly steep climb and take many, many years to overcome … but Republicans didn’t quit running as Republicans back when Democrats kept winning.

I mean, Johnny Isakson lost a lot of elections before getting where he is now. It’s hard to argue that the work he did for the party was essential to its success (as one example).